


How do you ruin me?

by thewindupbird



Series: I love your bones [2]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-05 02:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12784857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewindupbird/pseuds/thewindupbird
Summary: But somehow, sneaking out before six in the morning doesn’t exactly scream ‘good friend,’ and he wants to be a good friend to Ryan. He tries, but…





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction and is in no way meant to depict the real lives of any persons involved. The title of this fic comes from a song by Black Prairie of the same name.
> 
> This comes from a place of love. Let's boogie, boys!

Shane is not very good at being in other people’s spaces. This is something he realizes, if not for the first time, then at least with the most intensity, when he wakes up at Ryan’s with the same stiffness in his shoulders and back that is indicative of crashing on sofas (or on the dirt floors on haunted ships, but’s he’s aware that most people’s thoughts don’t go like this). Shane twists onto his back, his ankles hooked over the arm of Ryan’s couch. He’s too tall for this, and too old, maybe.  
  
He’s been lying awake for at least twenty minutes, and he doesn’t know what to _do_ here; how to be. And Shane is used to waking up earlier than other people, but holy smokes, 5:30 is a little ridiculous. His mind’s already running though, so, of course, he’s not getting back to sleep, even if he tries. The problem now, is how long he’s going to lie here before he becomes ashamed of himself and his own indecision.  
  
As he tries to remember if he knows what time Ryan usually gets up when he’s not ghost hunting, Shane realizes with a sudden rush of relief that it’s Wednesday, anyway, and getting up for work is an eventual inevitability.  
  
He wonders if the morning is going to be awkward, and decides on probably not. _It’s not like we had sex—_ he thinks, and then pushes down that thought as fast as he can, before it can go anywhere dangerous. Or, at least, he tries to. Because suddenly, there is the memory of Ryan’s mouth, warm and willing beneath his, and how he’d looked at Shane in a way that made Shane feel like things were spiraling completely out of his control. He finds himself suddenly wondering if he would be irredeemable if he got up and left now, before Ryan wakes up, and just— he could shower at his own apartment, and collect himself, and figure out his shit before he has to see Ryan at work…  
  
But somehow, sneaking out before six in the morning doesn’t exactly scream ‘good friend,’ and he _wants_ to be a good friend to Ryan. He tries, but… but sometimes he gets this feeling that Ryan is _too_ good. Too pure and honest and untouched. Shane never feels like his own sarcastic cynicism and skepticism is ever going to rub off onto Ryan, or taint him in any way, because Ryan is so stubbornly, infuriatingly, beautifully invested in his own beliefs.  
  
Ryan has his own view of this weird little Ryan Bergara world which, Shane knows, includes not only ghosts, but also the genuine goodness of other people, and it’s untouchable. And Shane feels like _he’s_ lost that a long time ago. Ryan will never sink beneath Shane’s skepticism, Shane will never weigh Ryan down. In some ways, this means that Ryan is the safest person Shane knows.  
  
Sometimes Shane wonders if he’s using Ryan for just that reason. Ryan doesn’t make Shane feel like he has to check himself, like other people do. And yet… lately… lately, Shane feels like all he is doing is checking himself. Trying not to look too long, or stand too close or kiss him on the mouth. _Now look what you’ve done_ , he chastises himself in his head. _You might very well fuck this thing up, because you let yourself feel too safe._  
  
He sits up, trying to clear his head. The blanket slides down his back as he rubs his face. He’s slept in his clothes, even though it was a little warm when they went to bed. Shane twists and opens the blinds over the window behind him, and takes in Ryan’s apartment in this barely-there light of early morning. He studies the room. Ryan’s gaming system, the controllers they’d used and like three fucking baseball hats just lying around. There’s the empty pizza box they left out last night, and the cans of Coke because, unspoken, neither of them apparently trusted themselves to drink last night. Shane tries not to think too hard about what that means.  
  
He feels a little like he’s in college again and a lot like he’s woken up in some frat-boy’s apartment, which he has, in a way. Shane wonders how the hell he’s found himself here, and what weird chemistry makes his and Ryan’s personalities mesh when they are such incredibly different people. He wonders if that has everything to do with Ryan, and nothing to do with him, because Ryan’s presence in a room is like the fucking sun, people are drawn to him (until they realize he’s annoying as hell, Shane thinks) and yet… and yet some people, like Shane, find that they don’t want to leave that brilliant warmth that comes from Ryan, and so they don’t.

___

 _Last night… Ryan had finally suggested they go to sleep around 2:30 in the morning. Shane had made up the couch with whatever bits and pieces he could find, which was what he always did at Ryan’s place (albeit, usually drunker). They took turns in the bathroom, where Shane chucked his contacts into the trash and then went back out to the living room, rooting around in his bag for his glasses while Ryan brushed his teeth, and everything felt normal. Ryan told him his makeshift couch was “shoddy workmanship” and Shane retorted that he was just working with what shoddy materials he had, and they were laughing… until Ryan headed towards his room, then paused, turning back in the doorway to face Shane. He took a breath and reached out to press his hands against either side of the doorframe, shifting his weight forward a little, the muscles in his arms shifting beneath his t-shirt, his forearms tense. He wasn’t looking at Shane, but suddenly the air felt tense and quiet and Shane just felt his stomach_ drop _, going very still where he sat on the couch, all the heat draining from his fingers as he felt such a forceful mixture of hope and fear and_ want _._  
  
_If Ryan asked Shane then, if he wanted to— if he wanted—… something more, Shane could see how it might go. He would stand and cross the room in two strides and kiss Ryan again, follow him into his bedroom, slide his cold hands up beneath Ryan’s t-shirt and over his ribs and his chest like he’d wanted to do on Ryan’s couch earlier that evening…_ If he asked me now _Shane thought,_ I would.  
  
_But Ryan didn’t ask. He looked up at Shane, and both of them held their breath, but Shane’s instincts had been to make his own face neutral, blank… and because of that, he could see whatever emotion was on Ryan’s face — whatever he’d been about to say — slip away. Instead, Ryan stuttered softly, then cleared his throat, and by the time he smiled, that emotion Shane couldn’t quite understand was gone, almost completely. “Night. Don’t let the ghosts get ya.”_  
  
_Shane had pretended to laugh, an exhale of tension or relief, because at least that moment of madness was over. “Get outta here,” he said, looking for something to throw at him. He settled on a pillow and Ryan_ did _laugh, then, more genuinely. Shane didn’t throw it, just watched Ryan duck behind his door for safety. He didn’t come out again, and Shane watched his door, just open the smallest gap, for a long few minutes, before it was pushed all the way to, latching softly. And he was shut out._

_~*~_

_Ryan felt like he stood there for a year, before he finally pushed his door all the way shut. His fucking hands were shaking. Honestly, he didn’t even know for sure what he was going to ask, or what he wanted, just that he wanted more than… this. He stood there on the other side of the door for a long time, full silence on both their parts. After what felt like forever, he finally heard Shane settle down on the couch and Ryan felt a rush of relief. At least he wasn’t leaving. Ryan wasn’t sure what he would do if their roles were reversed… he’d probably leave, he thought._  
  
_Finally, Ryan stepped away from the door, and got into his own bed, but it wasn’t with the same kind of relief that he usually had after these Unsolved Excursions. It didn’t feel nearly as welcoming as it usually did…_

~*~

Finally, Shane gives in. It’s not like Ryan doesn’t want him here, or like he’d care if Shane gets up. Shane honestly doesn’t know why he feels so fucking awkward about this whole thing. His first instinct is to fight that awkwardness, so he does. He gets up, finds his glasses on the floor beside the couch, and spends about five minutes fishing his toothbrush from the very bottom of his bag, and then wanders to the bathroom to piss.  
  
Brushing his teeth, Shane confronts his own reflection. His hair is absolutely wild, and his eyes look a little too dark which means he’s too pale, tired. He feels a little like he looks like shit. Maybe he can chalk that up to just needing a shower, or not getting a proper sleep. On his way back to the living room, he trips over a shoe and sort of stumbles into the wall cursing aloud, but softly, almost conversationally. Ryan’s apartment has a nice living room, a spacious kitchen that he never uses, and the cost of all this is that his storage, bathroom, and front door are all crammed into the same two square inches of space. Shane thinks this is ridiculous. He leaves the shoe where he’s kicked it and heads back to the living room, antsy, needing something to do.  
  
Quietly, he gathers up the pizza box and the soda cans and whatever else is trash, and tosses it away in the kitchen. Because he’s trying not to make too much noise, it takes longer. He thinks about throwing away some of Ryan’s ridiculous hats, too. As he turns, his heart leaps the same way it does every time Ryan gets scared by nothing and screams for no reason; enough to startle Shane.  
  
“Jumping— _Jesus,_ man,” he says.  
  
Ryan is standing there, shirtless, half asleep. His hair is ridiculous because he slept with all that product in it. Shane can’t help but laugh at him.  
  
“I thought you were a ghost, maybe,” Ryan says, voice low with sleep.  
  
“Yeah, a ghost cleaning up your pizza boxes,” says Shane, and watches Ryan squint at him myopically without his glasses.  
  
“I can’t even see your stupid face, and I know how you’re looking at me,” Ryan says, and Shane laughs again, feels ridiculously endeared. “Did you just say ‘Jumping Jesus?’ ”  
  
“I, uh— yeah.”  
  
“Why are you up? It’s like five in the morning,” Ryan says, his voice tipping over into exasperation.  
  
“I’m an early riser, baby,” Shane says, still joking. In fact, he’s hoping hard to keep this conversation _firmly_ in the realm of Joking so that he doesn’t have to think that Ryan looks good, or that he sounds nice when he’s half-asleep, and a whole lot of other things Shane doesn’t want to examine too closely.  
  
Ryan says, “You’re insane,” which is the same thing he said before he kissed him last night and Shane thinks _ah, fuck._ He says, “Go back to bed, Ryan.”  
  
“Are you leaving?”  
  
“I—” Shane hesitates a second too long. “I should shower.”  
  
“Shower here,” Ryan says.  
  
“I can’t just—”  
  
“Why?” Ryan asks.  
  
And that’s it, really. _Why? Why not?_ Shane looks at him. Ryan looks cold. “You got a towel?” he asks. Ryan nods and shuffles off to find him one. “I’ll drive you to work.” he says, pushing it into Shane’s hands. “It’s blackmail. So you’ll buy me breakfast on the way to work.”  
  
Shane takes the towel from him and avoids his eyes. “Right. Deal.”  
  
Shane turns to go shower and Ryan heads back to bed. He doesn’t fall asleep again, though, even though he tries, Instead, he finds himself listening to the sound of the water through the wall, and wondering if he could get used to this. Wondering if he wants to.

___

Shane does _not_ buy him breakfast, and they argue playfully about it all the way from the Drive Thru to work. There is only one moment, where they are sitting at what feels like the longest traffic light on the face of the earth that an awkward silence falls between them, the two of them just drinking their coffee and avoiding one another’s eyes. Ryan knows that that wouldn’t have been there before. He doesn’t know what to do about it, either.  
  
They are walking across the parking lot, and beneath the banter, Ryan’s thinking that maybe this whole thing’s a lot better, or at least a lot less awkward if they just stay friends. But then he looks over at Shane at just the wrong moment, or the right one. He is laughing, practically bent double as they push their way through BuzzFeed’s glass doors, and Ryan thinks _I never want to lose this._  
  
He doesn’t even have time to wonder whether that’s a normal friend thought or not, before someone whisks Shane away for a project with a frenzied kind of urgency borne only from something going disastrously wrong right before a deadline.  
  
They barely see each other for the rest of the week. Ryan spends it trying to focus on Unsolved. He reads his intern’s research notes over and over again, and doesn’t absorb any of it. He hits reply to emails and forgets what he was doing. It feels like he’s slowly losing his mind which, he thinks (only half joking) was probably always an inevitability, but he hadn’t expected it to happen quite so quickly.  
  
He wishes it were as much fun to blame Shane for his distraction when Shane isn’t here beside him. But even when he is — quick snatches of time where Shane shows up, says “Hey Ryan,” and prints something from his computer or scarfs down lunch or grabs his phone charger or his headphones from his desk before dashing off again — Ryan thinks that it probably wouldn’t be funny to say _“Hey, you’re in my head so much I can’t even work.”_  
  
On Friday morning, Shane slides into the seat beside him a little earlier than he usually arrives at work. All week, Ryan’s been coming in earlier, and leaving later than almost everyone (save possibly Eugene) in an attempt to make up for all the time he’s lost just staring blankly at his laptop screen in a daze, so he’s a little surprised to see him. He’s even more surprised when Shane doesn’t immediately have to run off somewhere else. Ryan saves what he’s got open in the editing program and slides his headphones off as he looks over. “Hey,” he says. It almost sounds like a question.  
  
They’re there alone, with only the low hum of a ton of computers and somewhere-electricity.  
“Hey,” Shane says, brightly. They’re quiet for a second, and Ryan swivels to face him, one foot hooked on the leg of his chair. Something’s up. He waits.  
  
“So,” Shane says, fiddling with his mouse, straightening it before he drops his hand and looks over. “Did you put it in the episode or…”  
  
“What? My panic attack?”  
  
“Yeah, and…”  
  
“Yeah. Or, no. No, I didn’t put it in.”  
  
Shane’s eyes flicker once between his, curious. He cocks his head a little. “Why not?”  
  
Ryan looks back at his screen, at the footage frame by frame and thinks about this for a second. “I… wanted to keep that to myself,” he says, softly. “Not the panic attack, that’s just like every week.”  
  
Shane doesn’t laugh. “When you say that—” he begins.  
  
“It just seemed simpler not to,” Ryan says, then smiles a little, but Shane thinks, maybe, there’s uncertainty in it. “Besides. We can’t let anyone think you have emotions.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t,” Shane quips.  
  
“No, I know,” Ryan laughs a little. “You’re like an alien, just copying human actions by observation.”  
  
“You keep that information to yourself,” Shane says sternly, but he’s playing along. “Or you might find yourself in trouble.”  
  
“With who? Your alien leader?”  
  
“Sorry, that’s classified,” Shane says, and Ryan laughs.  
  
“You know, I don’t think your improv classes were a total waste,” Ryan says. “You sort of got a tentative grasp on how emotions work.”  
  
“I was trying them out,” Shane says, leaning back in his chair, his eyes still on Ryan. But he’s a little more relaxed. “I was trying them out on you.”  
  
“Well, I think you’ve got Annoying Asshole down pat,” Ryan says, still grinning. He realizes he hasn’t looked away from Shane in some time, so he does now, but not for long, because Shane spreads his arms in a grandiose gesture that takes up a little too much space.  
  
“See?” Shane says, “I’m doing good!”  
  
“Yeah,” Ryan agrees, and his eyes are on his screen again. “For a minute there, I’d say you’d almost convinced yourself.” He looks back.  
  
Shane hesitates, and suddenly they are just looking at one another. They’re adrift, just the two of them, and suddenly they’re too serious to be smiling anymore.

~*~

“Did you?” Ryan asks, and it strikes Shane, like it always does, how vulnerable Ryan is. How vulnerable he _lets_ himself be, and how much Shane is affected by that. It’s stupid, he thinks, and brave. And honestly, he’s a little jealous of this ability of Ryan’s — this unshakeable faith in himself.  
  
He’s been holding Ryan’s eyes and has almost forgotten what they’re talking about — they’re dancing around something else again, like they were at Ryan’s apartment, like they always seem to be doing these days and sometimes it’s exhausting to figure out what’s beneath the surface.  
  
“Shane?” Ryan says, and it occurs to him that he likes the way Ryan says his name. That it sounds different in his mouth than in anyone elses. He forces himself back to the conversation, to the question at hand.  
  
“Did I what?”  
  
“Convince yourself?”  
  
Shane feels his chest constrict, and so he does what he always does when he feels a little lost. He smiles, he winks at Ryan as he leans forward and ruffles Ryan’s hair beneath his stupid hipster beanie.  
  
“Convinced _you_ ,” he says, and because the words sound wrong, like a lie, he lets his fingers linger there, half on the soft grey material of Ryan’s hat and half on the side of his neck, and then he stands up and walks away. “You want a coffee?” he calls over his shoulder.  
  
The response takes a beat too long, but then Ryan says “I want a latte.” Shane doesn’t look back, and even though Ryan's half-joking, mostly just being difficult, Shane can hear something wrong, hurt maybe, in Ryan’s voice.  
  
Over his shoulder, Shane calls the only thing he can think to make Ryan sound normal again. “Fuck you!”  
  
“Do it!”  
  
“Shut up!”  
  
Ryan’s laughter follows Shane into the kitchen as he pushes open the door and lets it swing shut behind him. He goes to the coffee machine and pushes the fucking latte button for Ryan's stupid drink.

~*~

The episode comes out as usual. The moment between them is not-so-mysteriously absent, and it’s a great episode, Shane thinks. One of the better ones. Suitably intense in all the right places, good banter between them that Shane had half-forgotten, and he laughs when he watches it back. What he does remember, is how upset Ryan had been, out by the car, after he thought he’d seen something upstairs, but that, too, is mysteriously absent from the video. Maybe they’ll talk about it in Postmortem. Maybe not.  
  
Over the weekend, Shane still can’t really sleep, even though he wants to. Maybe Ryan thinks things follow _him_ back from ghost busting, but Shane feels haunted by Ryan. Unfortunately, the haunting is a suspiciously silent one. Ryan’s social media is quiet, save the obligatory Instagram and Facebook posts looking for questions from viewers. He doesn’t send Shane any texts. More than once, Shane picks up his phone to send something, but it all seems so mundane. What does he want to say? He has no idea… only that he wants to say… something. Sunday night rolls around, and finally Shane gives in.  
  
He wants to reach out just to be sure that Ryan’s still going to reach back.  
  
That makes him an asshole for fucking sure.  
  
<Ryan> he texts  
  
The reply comes fast. Almost immediately. <What do you want>  
  
Shane has no idea what he wants. He’s typing anyway. <Ghosts aren’t real>  
  
<Go fuck yourself>  
  
Shane smiles down at his phone a little too hard at that. He sends Ryan a ghost emoji, then writes <It was a good episode>, before he tosses the phone onto the coffee table and promises himself not to look at it again until morning.

___

By the time Monday morning does roll around, after what felt like the longest night, Shane is standing alone in front of the coffee machine at work. He’s waiting for the thing to fill his mug and lamenting that it’s only 11:30 in the morning, and he’s already exhausted. He wishes very intensely that he could sleep like a normal person. Around him, the office is alive and bustling. He can hear a burst of laughter from a meeting room just down the hallway. The door swings open into the kitchen and, without looking up, he can hear the noise from the office chatter increase and then fade again. Shane finally takes his mug and starts searching for the creamer which somehow always gets shoved to the very back of the fridge…  
  
He’s just wondering if he could get away with taking a quick twenty minute nap in Ghoul HQ when, behind him, someone says “Are you ever going to kiss me again?”  
  
Shane spins around to face Ryan, carton of coffee cream in hand and says “Uh,” and is immediately disgusted with himself and his lack of creativity.  
  
Ryan is leaning against the table, his eyes on Shane. “I mean,” Ryan says, “I get it, if you aren’t going to, but I thought…” he hesitates, then shrugs. Shane feels trapped, and the fridge air is still washing over him. “I didn’t think this was going to be a ‘never again’ type scenario, I guess,” Ryan finishes.  
  
Shane looks away, pushes the fridge door shut with an elbow. He’s extremely aware that this is the very last place on earth he wants to be talking about this, but when he meets Ryan’s eyes again, he suddenly feels like even more of an asshole than before.  
  
“I guess I wasn’t aware it was my _turn_ ,” he says, going for joking but coming off a little too defiant.  
  
“Well, since I practically had to beg you to stay last time, I thought it was probably better not to push,” Ryan retorts.  
  
“I stayed, didn’t I?” Shane asks, and wonders how they’re fighting about _this_ , _now_.  
  
“But you were planning on leaving. That’s why you cleaned up. You felt bad. I don’t need your—”  
  
“That’s _not_ —” Shane begins, and then they’re talking over one another, and he realizes that again, he’s tangled up in this fucked up place of trying hard to be a good friend and just not being able to pull through, or being read all wrong, or hiding once more behind his own fucking sarcasm, and he suddenly wonders how long Ryan’s going to put up with it. He catches his breath. Ryan’s sentence trails off as Shane goes quiet, and then:  
  
“Ryan—”  
  
“I’m not trying to fight,” Ryan admits, voice still too tightly wound. “I’m just genuinely fucking confused.” And there it is again, that absolute willingness to be vulnerable. Shane wonders if Ryan’s like this with everyone, or if it’s just him. He sets the carton he’s still holding like an idiot down on the counter. “Well, so am I, Ry.” The nickname almost surprises him. Surprises them both.  
  
“Look. Can we not do this at work? Please?” Shane asks.  
  
Ryan’s eyes flicker over him and Shane suddenly feels like he’s one of Ryan’s case boards, all covered with red thread. Like that’s maybe all that’s holding him together. He also feels a little like he’s just standing there for Ryan to suss out. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, he thinks, and he looks away.  
  
Suddenly, Ryan pushes off from the table and comes over, and Shane tenses, but all Ryan does is reach for a cup, shoo Shane away from the coffee machine. Shane turns his body slightly away from him and pours the cream into his coffee, starts searching for a clean spoon instead.  
  
“When?”  
  
“What?” Shane asks,  
  
“When can we talk about it?”  
  
Shane sighs and tosses the spoon into the sink instead of putting it in the dishwasher. “Whenever, I just… I dunno why you’re looking at me like I’m going to have all the answers.” He takes a drink like _Case closed, Ryan!_ but Ryan doesn’t seem to get the message.  
  
“I’m not looking for that, I…” Ryan sighs, too, then moves his cup to the counter near Shane’s hip, and then suddenly, he’s blocking Shane in, one hand on either side of his waist. Shane’s breath catches, because he didn’t expect this, but then Ryan’s bravery always surprises him.  
  
“I just wanted to know like,—” Shane hears Ryan’s voice shake, but says nothing. “Is this something we’re still doing or…?”  
  
Shane’s hyper-aware of the voices nearby, reminding him that other people _do_ exist, but even more, he’s aware of Ryan’s face, turned up to his, his eyes intense and alive.  
  
“Is it something _you_ still want to be doing?” Shane asks him.  
  
“I asked you first.”  
  
“That’s— that’s very cliché, Ryan,” Shane informs him, “I’m disappointed.” But he’s still holding his gaze.  
  
Ryan has a freckle, or a birthmark maybe, in his right eye. It’s not easy to see, and Shane has noticed it before, but suddenly he finds it ridiculously intimate to know— to _notice_ something like that. He only really remembers it when Ryan’s up close, and when the light is good. When he looks up at Shane.  
  
Fuck, Shane’s in fucking deep. He’s still holding his coffee in one hand, the other clutching at the edge of the counter behind him, and Ryan is still holding him there, without even touching him. He steps a little closer to Shane and Shane shakes his head at him as though to say _You are fucking impossible._ But that’s it. He’s already given in. He ducks his head to kiss him, but—  
  
Maybe they both chicken out. Ryan tips his face down at the last moment, and Shane, unsure, hitches back a little. Ryan doesn’t pull away, though, so Shane tucks his face down into Ryan’s hair instead, just at his temple and they both take a breath. Shane closes his eyes and hears Ryan exhale shakily. His hair smells like shampoo and product more than it smells like Ryan and he wonders how this can be so fucking intense when they aren’t really doing anything at all.  
  
“Shit, sorry,” Ryan is whispering, maybe apologizing for the botched kiss, and Shane breathes a laugh against his cheek, and they shift, and it’s easy. Their lips brush by accident first, misjudging the distance, and it’s not quite a kiss yet, but it’s ridiculously intimate, somehow, and Shane’s heart skips more than once.  
  
And then there is a clatter and a burst of laughter and, impossibly sudden, Ryan is gone.  
  
Shane only has time to register the hot coffee sloshing over his fingers as Steven and Keith come bounding through the doorway in a rush. Somewhere just in Shane’s periphery, Ryan collides backwards with a chair and almost falls over. He would have laughed at him, but instead, Shane hisses at the heat of the liquid and drops his cup. It smashes, sending coffee all over the floor and his shoes.  
  
“Whoa, man,” Steven says. “What happened? You got coffee everywhere.”  
  
“Ryan— Ryan did it,” Shane says.  
  
“What?! No I didn’t!”

~*~

Ryan looks from Shane and his ridiculous lying mouth, to Steven and Keith, and back, and they both realize at once that they weren’t caught, somehow. And Ryan takes Shane in from where he stands, half-tangled in the table and chairs — Shane who looks too intense, and half-panicked, and about thirty-percent covered in coffee — and they both just die. Ryan has to sit down, practically crying with mirth, and Shane leans over the counter for support.  
  
“Uh,” Steven says, speaking over their laughter. “Yeah, so we need a person to do a Weird Milkshakes video, if either of you want to— it’s starting in ten, so…”  
  
“I’ll do it,” Shane says, collecting himself faster than Ryan can.  
  
“Like _that?_ ” Keith asks him, indicating the coffee he’s covered in.  
  
Shane waves a hand. “There’s gonna be a table, they only film from here up anyway… let me just clean this up—”  
  
“Good man,” Keith says and starts gathering paper towel.  
  
Ryan’s collected himself by the time the shards are in the trash, and the coffee’s mostly mopped up. Shane gives Ryan a look as he trails the other two out. Ryan can’t quite read it but then, just before the door swings shut, Shane mouths “later,” and Ryan goes back to his desk feeling a lot lighter than before. And also, mildly terrified.  
  
He forgets his own coffee in the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be continued
> 
> I know these things are filmed in advance but, meh, I changed it to suit my story-time ideals. Sorry again to anyone who knows how this stuff actually works.
> 
> Also, hey there again, I'm back. I hope this was a good one.


	2. Chapter 2

The day just _drags_. Ryan goes to a producing meeting for Unsolved, and his head’s just not in the game, and they can tell. Someone actually catches his arm outside afterwards and asks him if he’s okay. If he’s still happy doing the show, and she looks genuinely concerned, and he wonders how out of it he seemed in the meeting because she seems genuinely surprised when he gets himself together and tells her that _yeah_ , he is _incredibly_ happy doing the show. He makes something up about having a headache, and that’s why he's sort of out of it today, and he guesses he satisfies her. She seemed genuinely confused by his optimism by the end of their conversation.  
  
He feels bad about it, which is ridiculous. He tries to make himself feel better by admitting that he does, actually kind of have a headache, and he remembers, as he walks by the kitchen, that he forgot to drink his coffee that morning. Someone’s cleared his cup from the counter, and he feels kind of bad about that, too. He makes another, all the while recalling what had happened here this morning, his stomach flipping, not unpleasantly.  
  
Shane’s not at his desk at lunch, or after, and Ryan finally asks someone, and they tell him he went out with a few other people to eat, but he should be back soon. They assume Ryan wants Shane for something work-related, he guesses.  
  
So, fine. Ryan waits another hour or so, and then finds some other poor souls who also haven’t eaten yet, even though it’s two p.m. And he tries to pay attention to the conversation, he really does, but it’s like everything it just background noise to his thoughts, and what happened this morning, and now he’s sort of wondering what Shane meant when he mouthed _later..._ He starts wondering if maybe that meeting that they are supposedly having later is going to be a continuation of Shane’s breath, soft against his temple or against his mouth— _Fuck, stop,_ Ryan thinks, dragging himself back to the conversation going on around him. And then he wonders, feeling suddenly cold, if maybe _later_ is going to be a conversation about why they shouldn’t have ever started this instead.  
  
But, Ryan thinks, it’s already started. He doesn’t know how to turn back from here.  
  
Someone says his name, twice, before he realizes he’s been asked a question, and he laughs and makes an excuse and tries to focus, again, on his life — the one happening right now — and not on a couple of moments with Shane, that are both so overwhelming and so comforting all at once, that he doesn’t even know if there’s a word for it in the English language. Or in any language…  
  
At quarter to six, Ryan jogs up the steps to the cramped little studio they call Ghoul HQ, which is really more of an attic room that someone (he and Shane) cleaned storage boxes, and old electronics, and a plethora of other, weirder things out of, months and months ago, to use as a filming space, and a work space, just for the two of them. He wants to head the fuck home. He’d stayed late all last week, and he doesn’t want to make it a habit, and so he flicks the light on, and quickly gathers up the things he needs there — laptop, research notes, portable hard drive.

~*~

Shane has pressed the elevator button what feels like a fucking hour ago. It’s still glowing with the little down arrow, but it hasn’t moved from the seventh floor. He feels jittery and nervous. It’s not a great feeling. Checking his watch, he sees it’s getting on past five thirty. He huffs a sigh and turns, pushing the exit door open to the stairs instead, and hurries down four flights of steps quickly enough that he’s a little dizzy by the end of it. He pushes the door to the second floor open and walks quickly towards his desk. Most everyone’s already gone home, but Ryan’s been here late more often than not, for a while, now…  
  
Still, when he gets close enough to see their desks, together, he can see that Ryan’s coat is gone, and so are his headphones, and so he must have gone home. Of course, he went home at a respectable time, _today_. The one day where Shane had finally— the only day they’d actually agreed to do something about this—... _this_. Between them.  
  
There’s no one around, so Shane bites out a quick, and slightly too loud “Fuck.”  
  
“Whoa, there,” someone says, and Shane jumps a little. Daysha peers around her computer screen. He hadn’t seen her. “You okay?” she asks him.  
  
“Yeah, I just… Ryan. I meant to talk to Ryan.”  
  
Daysha raises her eyebrows. Shane feels, very suddenly, as though he’s found himself in a snare.  
  
“What’re you two up to?” she asks him.  
  
“What?” Shane hears himself ask, voice soft, light, half-laughing. He sounds normal. He’s impressed with himself.  
  
“Nothing, just you’ve both been totally out of it all day.” You both keep coming in here, looking,” she says, pointing to their desks, “but you kept missing each other.”  
  
_You kept missing each other_ , Shane thinks. Something about that makes his breath come a little tighter. Something about that scares him.  
  
He and Daysha stare at each other, and then she shakes her head and looks back at her computer, cutting him a break. “I’m just saying, I’ve been watching him stare at his computer screen without doing anything all day, and all last week, too. He’s completely spaced. You should have seen him at lunch today. He was looking for you, by the way,” she says, and her dark eyes flicker back up to his.  
  
“Oh,” says Shane.  
  
He feels like she’s got him figured out. He half wants to tell her everything and say _Daysha, help_. But that would be crazy, and unfair to her, and also, he reasons, maybe he’s just being paranoid.  
  
“Actually,” Daysha continues, “I didn’t see him leave yet. I think he went up to your office upstairs.” She smiles at him in this way that’s both warm and a little frightening because she definitely knows something’s up, and Shane swallows. He doesn’t move until she waves her hand at him like _go_.

“Thank you,” he says, and bolts.

~*~

Ryan jumps a little when he hears footsteps on the steps outside. Ghoul HQ is fine in the daytime, or when Shane’s here, too, but sometimes — when the sky’s already dark outside the windows like it is now, and he’s the only one up here, it’s a little spooky.  
  
The door opens, and Ryan finds himself thinking _The thing with Shane Madej, is that he’s sort of odd looking._ He thinks this at the same time as his whole body just tenses up, his heart skipping, a burst of nervousness in his stomach. They meet each other’s eyes, and Shane is panting like he’s run up all the steps.  
  
Ryan says the only thing he can think to say, which is “Did you run up all the steps or something?” and then Shane steps inside. He doesn’t have to duck to get through the doorway, but Ryan has noticed that Shane ducks through every doorway. He’s too tall, really. He’s too tall, and sort of strangely put together and Ryan can’t say what it is about _Shane_ that strikes him so much, but it’s something, and it hits him again, now, as Shane pushes the door shut behind him.  
  
And then he locks it, and Ryan’s brain sort of fractures and he says, “Hey, man,” sounding rather less like it's a greeting, and more like he’s about to get punched in a fistfight. And Shane, who hasn’t dropped his eyes yet, crosses the room to him and kind of catches him up by the front of Ryan’s shirt, and the top of his arm like he’s about to shove him, and then he kisses him instead.  
  
Ryan makes a sound and they both sort of overbalance because he’d actually shied away a little. It’s not because he thinks Shane would actually try to hurt him — it comes from somewhere instinctive: if something comes too close to your eyes, you blink. If you touch something hot, you pull away. He steps back, trying to correct the balance between them and half-stumbles over the wheeled leg of the chair behind him and finds himself sitting down hard. The kiss breaks, but Shane follows him anyway, one hand on the desk and one hand on the back of the chair. He’s still standing, but he’s stepped half between Ryan’s legs, looming over him a little, blocking out the light and Ryan’s too caught up, too startled to speak, and then Shane says softly, “Oh, Jesus,” and touches the side of Ryan’s neck, and kisses him again.  
  
For the first time, ever, they don’t break it off too soon. Ryan’s somehow dug the toe of his shoe behind the wheel of the chair so that he doesn’t keep being rolled back. He doesn't even think about the fact that these are customs, and that the leather might get creased or scratched. He has to crane his neck up to kiss Shane, and he’s sure that leaning over him like he is can’t be comfortable for Shane either, but that takes the backseat to the feeling of their mouths together, the feeling of Shane's hands. Shane drags the beanie Ryan’s wearing off and drops it somewhere so he can bury his fingers in Ryan’s hair. He’s still panting and, Ryan, too, is breathing too fast.  
  
When the kiss does end, naturally, Shane lingers for a moment, their foreheads almost touching, and then he steps back. Ryan hears something in the taller man's back crack and he breathes a soft laugh as he straightens up, one hand touching the back of his neck where he feels his muscles seizing up a little.  
  
Shane sort of looks around the room like he’s not sure how he got here and they both catch their breath, avoiding one another's gaze.  
  
Ryan looks him over and says, softly, “You didn’t even— you still have coffee all over you, dude,” and Shane says “Yeah,” and then they look at each other. Shane laughs first. Just a fast, unstoppable exhale, but it’s enough. The tension slips out of the room, escaping through cracks in the floorboards, the gap under the door.  
  
“Oh my God,” Ryan says, followed by the more mundane. “Where’s my hat?”  
  
“Yeah, your hair looks stupid.”  
  
Ryan fishes his hat off the ground, but doesn’t put it back on. “Your face looks stupid.”  
  
“Oh, good one, Ryan,” Shane says, playfully scathing. “I’ve _never_ heard that one before.”  
  
Ryan mutters something about not wasting his best witticisms on Shane as he starts gathering up his things again.  
  
“You going home?” Shane asks.  
  
“Yeah,” Ryan says. “You?”  
  
“Yeah, I’m done.” They hesitate, and then Shane says “Let’s get a drink,” in this way that’s too fast, almost urgent, and Ryan feels an incredible rush of relief. He smiles as he straightens, shifting his computer, his hard drive in his arms. “Sure,” he says. “But I’m not going anywhere with you, if you’re covered in food.”  
  
“It’s _barely_ noticeable, Ryan,” Shane says. “And it’s only below the knee. It could be _mud_."  
  
“Oh, because that’s so much better,” Ryan says and nods towards the door as he passes him, almost managing to be casual. “Let’s go.”  
  
They unlock Ghoul HQ and head out together. Ryan is aware of each time their clothes brush — standing a little too close.  
  
Shane says, “Even covered in coffee, I look better than you.”  
  
“You want me to push you down these stairs, don't you?” Ryan asks, as they make their way down them together, Shane slightly ahead of him.

~*~

They pass Daysha, still working, on their way out, and they all say bye to one another. Ryan’s none-the-wiser. He tells her not to work too hard, and she tells them to have a good night, but Shane glances back as he holds the front door open for Ryan, whose hands are still full of electronics and they catch each other’s eyes.  
  
He’s not sure what the look says, really, but it’s sort of solid and, somehow, it makes this feel a little bit more real. Somehow, that’s a comfort. He nods to her, then turns and follows Ryan out, the door swinging shut behind them.

___

  
They stop at Shane’s so that he can change his clothes and as he pushes the door of Ryan’s car open to get out, Ryan says, “Hey, uh… maybe I could leave my laptop and stuff here, instead of in the car, just in case someone breaks into my car downtown or something.”  
  
It’s not an outrageous request, but Shane can’t help but think it’s not entirely honest. “Sure,” he says. Ryan unbuckles his seat belt and Shane feels a jolting rush of uncertainty. “Here—,” he says, “I got it. I’ll take it. Five minutes,” he tells him, not really giving him a choice. Ryan hesitates a moment, then reaches into the back for his stuff and hands it to Shane, and Shane can feel Ryan’s eyes on him as he carries it inside, but he doesn’t look back.  
  
He carefully sets Ryan’s things down on his coffee table, then changes his clothes, feeling like a dick, kind of, because he didn’t want Ryan to come up. Or he did… he doesn’t know.  
  
It was a scarier possibility than it was appealing. He wants to fix it.  
  
He catches his breath at his front door before he goes out again, his heart pounding. He isn’t sure it’s stopped racing since he kissed Ryan in Ghoul HQ.  
  
Outside, he crosses to Ryan’s car and taps on the window once before he pulls the door open. “Hey,” he says. “Leave your car here… let’s take an Uber to the bar and then--”  
  
“Are we getting _that_ drunk?” Ryan asks, already laughing. “It’s Monday night!”  
  
“Fuck it,” Shane says, pulling away from the car and tipping his head towards the apartments’ parking lot. “Come on, fuck it. Fuck it, Ryan!” he says, half-shouting into the night air.  
  
Ryan’s laughing because Shane’s fucking insane, but he does as he’s told. By the time he meets Shane back in front of his building, he’s already requested the Uber.

~*~

It’s good to go out. It feels normal, mostly, but sometimes Shane’s eyes on his feels more intense than usual, or maybe he’s just drunk. Because they do get drunk. They are. They tumble into the Uber that will take them back to Shane’s, and Ryan can’t remember the last time he laughed this hard, but he’s sure that it was when they were together.  
  
Shane practically pushes him into his apartment, shushing him because he’s been talking too loudly in the hallway, and it’s like two in the morning, and they’re going to piss off the neighbours. They both stand there for a moment as Shane searches for the hall light, and Ryan starts giggling when Shane swears, because he can’t find it.  
  
“Shut up,” Shane says.  
  
“Shut up, Shane,” Ryan tells him, and they catch each others eyes in the semi-darkness. There is electric light from outside pouring in through Shane’s living room window. He hadn’t closed his curtains before he left, and Ryan can see Shane’s eyes searching his, can see him start the question but before it’s even really on his lips Ryan shrugs his shoulders a little, and nods and Shane breathes a laugh and says “Okay,” and then Ryan closes the distance between them again.  
  
Shane’s mouth tastes like the beer they were drinking, and Ryan’s sure his does, too, and he’s drunk enough not to care that he has to push himself up to his toes to kiss him properly. Shane’s hands slide beneath his jacket and he pushes it off his shoulders and Ryan shrugs out of it thinking _Oh, shit_ , at the feeling that gives him, but he doesn't want to stop.  
  
Somehow, they stumble into the living room, and Ryan’s the one bold enough to catch Shane around the waist and pull him against his own body, tight, by the small of his back, and Ryan can feel Shane, already hard, and knows that Shane must be able to feel him, too.  
  
That’s enough to make them both groan, and for a second Shane’s hands light on his hips to hold him there, tightly, and then Ryan’s back hits the wall in a way that is contrastingly gentle, compared to the desperation in their hands, their lips. Shane follows, but suddenly, he’s not close — not as close as they were a second ago. He kisses him a moment longer, but as soon as Ryan reaches for him again, Shane breaks away.  
  
“Maybe we should—” Shane starts, and Ryan hears himself agreeing, without knowing what exactly he’s agreeing to.  
  
“Huh?” Shane asks.  
  
“I dunno." Ryan laughs, but his eyes are searching Shane’s. “Too drunk?” he asks.  
  
Shane makes a face. “Maybe,” he agrees.  
  
“Too freaked out?” Ryan suggests, as an alternative.  
  
Shane cocks his head at him, one hand in his brown hair. “Yeah,” he says, allowing himself to be vulnerable just for that second, and Ryan feels his breath catch in his throat.  
  
“Okay,” he says. “Yeah, that’s fair. Let’s take a… a time out.”  
  
Shane laughs. “It’s not a sports game, Ryan.”  
  
Ryan makes a sound of indignation and then squints as Shane flicks on the light.  
  
They kind of gather themselves. It takes a few minutes. He goes to fetch his jacket from the hallway and, as he returns, Shane pushes a glass of water into his hands and shrugs when Ryan gives him a look. “Monday. You know.”  
  
“Tuesday, now,” Ryan says. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he drinks it. It’s refreshingly cold. They avoid one another's eyes in the kitchen, but the silence between them is strangely peaceful, even if it’s a little awkward.  
  
Suddenly, Shane says, “You want some toast?”  
  
Ryan almost chokes on his water and they start to laugh.  
  
“I’m just trying to prevent the inevitable hangover,” Shane says.

~*~

Twenty minutes later, they are sitting on Shane’s couch eating toast, trying to remember why it took so long to make it. Shane had burned the first pieces and then Ryan had dropped his on the floor (“Jesus, Ryan!”) and now they’re here. They’re both feeling a lot more sober.  
  
“Listen, Ryan,” Shane says, as he finishes his toast and sets his plate down “This thing…”  
  
“You said you didn’t want to make it A Thing,” Ryan reminds him.  
  
Shane winces a little. “Yeah, I did… but it’s… it’s kind of become a thing, hasn’t it?”  
  
“Yeah, I’d say it’s become a thing,” Ryan agrees. “And I’m tired of… avoiding it, or pretending to avoid it when we’re not… I’m tired of talking around it.”  
  
“Yup,” Shane says, agreeing wholeheartedly. “Let’s not do that anymore.”  
  
“But are we still… if this is a thing, is it still a thing we’re doing?”  
  
Shane looks up at him, surprised to find Ryan’s eyes already on his. “I guess so. I mean, we’re here.” He’s surprised when Ryan smiles.  
  
“We’re still talking around it.”  
  
“I think that’s because neither of us knows what’s happening,” Shane says.  
  
“Would it be easier if we weren’t both dudes?” Ryan asks.  
  
Shane considers this, considers Ryan, looking sort of beautiful and anxious and thinks _okay._ “No.” Shane says. “That’s not it. For me, anyway. I’ve never cared about that.”  
  
“What does that even mean?” Ryan asks.  
  
“I’m… I just don’t care about straight, gay, whatever. Sorry,” he adds, because he feels like he should. Ryan’s the one that was struggling with this, just the other week.  
  
“Wait, have you— are you— hold up,” Ryan says, and Shane has to laugh. “Are you— have you been with guys before?”  
  
“Eh, I wouldn’t say… I mean sort of.”  
  
Ryan’s eyes look like they’re about to bug out of his head and Shane laughs again, harder. “It was ages ago, Ryan, like fucking college. I just— people. People are people, whatever.” He waves a hand, vaguely.  
  
“Wait, though,” Ryan’s saying. “Have you _fucked dudes_?”  
  
“Fucked is a strong word,” Shane says.  
  
“Why didn’t you say— _what_?”  
  
“I don’t know who _you_ were fucking in college, Ryan,” Shane says. “Does it matter?”  
  
“Kind of! I thought we were sort of in the same boat—”  
  
“We are. Believe me, we are,” Shane tells him.  
  
“But we’re not. We’re— you know what you’re doing!”  
  
Shane laughs, almost self-deprecating “Oh, I do? That’s a relief. Because actually, I feel completely at sea here—”  
  
“I mean, a week ago I was like ‘Hey, I might be gay,’ and you didn’t think to say anything about this _then_?”  
  
“Because I’m _not—_ ” Shane sighs. “Fuck. I’m not… anything. I’m just— me, I dunno. I like people or I don’t like them. I’m attracted to them, or not.”  
  
“Yeah, there’s a word for that,” Ryan says, acting like a fucking know-it-all. Shane kind of wants to throw something at him.  
  
“I don’t… care, Ryan,” Shane says, unable to hide his frustration, now. “Look, whatever I’ve— this with you— I dunno. I know just as much as you do, okay? I’m just as fucking— I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know what to do. Stop looking to me like I should.”  
  
“Fine. Okay.”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“Good.” Ryan toys with his plate. “So in college...”  
  
Shane takes a breath, giving in. “In college I had a… there was a guy I was sort of— I dunno. We messed around sometimes, sometimes it got intense. We tried to fuck once and it was— disappointing and not— done properly, and it kind of sucked. And then that was it. Basically.”

~*~

Ryan listens to this and expects to feel something else. Shock, maybe. But as Shane talks about it, the initial surprise, the outrage Ryan had felt at first fades to just… calm. He gets it, sort of, as well as he can. He imagines, for Shane, it feels pretty much like he, Ryan, did, the morning after the gay bar. Something that was intense, that comes back to him in flashes, sometimes. And also, mostly, something he’d rather forget.  
  
And part of him is thinking that he should see Shane differently, now. That Shane should seem… changed, but he doesn’t. He’s just Shane, like always.  
  
“Okay,” he says. “Yeah, shit. Okay.”  
  
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Ryan, I just— I don’t want to fuck this up. I really don’t want us to fuck this up.”  
  
Ryan goes quiet, taking that in. He just watches him until Shane, who hasn’t looked at him since they started talking about the whole sexual orientation thing, finally raises his head and meets his eyes.

~*~

Shane meets Ryan’s eyes. He feels drunk and tired and fucking scared.  
  
“Okay, so,” Ryan says, “Let’s not fuck it up.”  
  
And then he smiles, and all at once Shane realizes what he’s said: ‘ _I don’t want_ us _to fuck this up.'_

 _'So let’s not fuck it up.’_ Ryan had replied, and Shane understands, all at once, that they’re in this together. That it's not just him responsible for everything. And suddenly, he feels… kind of okay.  
  
Whatever this thing is, it’s theirs now. And he’d thought that that would make it worse — that sharing this with someone, with Ryan — would take it out of his hands, out of his control. And maybe it does, but… Somehow, that _doesn’t_ make it worse. He’s still scared — this isn’t something Shane is used to, but for the first time in weeks, he feels like he can breathe properly.

~*~

Shane always feels sort of far away, Ryan thinks, but sometimes it’s worse than others. Now is not one of those times. He almost feels like he could reach out and touch him. He almost feels like he could lean over and kiss him again, but they both need a moment. At least this time, taking some time doesn’t feel like it might be the end of whatever they’ve started.  
  
“We should probably sleep,” Ryan finally says. It’s nearly three in the morning. The Witching Hour. “Should I call an Uber, or?”  
  
“No,” Shane says. “Stay here.”  
  
And Ryan had hoped for that. Really, despite Shane's being a dick ninety-nine percent of the time, Ryan doesn't actually think Shane would kick him out.

He reaches back for the blanket folded along the top of the couch, the one that’s still here from the last time he slept on Shane’s couch, the one that reminds him of Illinois, even though he’s never been to the place where Shane’s from.  
  
“Hey,” Shane says as he stands. “It’s— it’s already going to be a rough morning. You should sleep in the bed.”  
  
Ryan furrows his brow. “Where are you gonna sleep?”  
  
Shane looks at him like he’s an idiot. “In the bed.”  
  
“Uh,” says Ryan. “Right, duh.”  
  
It’s just like the haunted places, Ryan thinks a few minutes later, after they have both taken out their contacts, brushed their teeth, in Shane’s case — Ryan hadn’t expected to stay…  
  
And suddenly they are facing off across Shane’s bed and Ryan tells himself again, his inner monologue slightly more anxious-sounding than usual _It’s just like the haunted places, man, chill out,_ and Shane points a finger at him. “No funny business,” he says, and he sounds dead serious, which means he isn't, and Ryan laughs.

They don’t touch. Shane curls up with his bony spine curved towards him, and Ryan lies on his back and thinks about how, in all the time they’ve known each other, of all the times they’ve fallen asleep within an arm's length of one another, it has never been in either of each other's beds.  
  
And he thinks about how familiar it is to hear Shane breathing next to him, and how comforting it is to listen to him fall asleep beside him, here, where he doesn’t have to worry about being fucking murked by a ghost, or possessed by demons.  
  
He thinks about how annoying it is that Shane can drop off so quickly, and how he’s never going to fall asleep if Shane’s going to fucking snore like that.  
  
And yet he does.  
  
And when morning comes, they are facing one another, but they are not touching. When morning comes, they have edged closer together, they have searched for each other, unknowing, in the night. But they still haven’t quite found one another yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to be continued 
> 
> (in the next part, which will the the third and final part of this series)
> 
> Thanks for sticking around, folks! <3

**Author's Note:**

> to be continued
> 
> Also, hey there again, I'm back. I hope this was a good one.


End file.
